Dirtscrolls

The Mach 4 has always been an important bike for Pivot Cycles. It was the brand’s first big hit, and long a mainstay of the lineup. But let’s face it, a 26-inch bike with 100mm of travel is a hard sell these days, and the new, fourth-generation Mach 4 Carbon has not only embraced all ...

Niner continues to expand beyond its original mountain bike lineup with an all-new, full-carbon cyclocross bike dubbed the Blood, Sweat and Beers, or BSB9 for short. With a sub-1,000 gram frame, full carbon fork and a suite of top notch components, it’s a no-compromise race bike that can be used year round. We also got ...

Last year we saw a prototype fat bike rim from Stan’s NoTubes, and while we figured a 26-inch wheel was in the works, today we saw the finished product: the Hugo is a 50mm-wide, tubeless rim with a unique cross section and options in all three wheel sizes. We also got the details and a ...

Most Rider’s Eye submissions are photographs, but we love reader videos as well. Check out this great clip of Oscar Mud, the trail dog in training. Submitted by Nikki Channon of MudTrek. Keep up the good work Oscar! Have a photo or video you’d like to submit? Send it to [email protected].  

The old-school, East Coast riding that make the trails at Slatyfork famous more than two decades ago are back with an expanded race weekend at the Pocahontas Trails in West Virginia. The new, three-day format features a short track race, an XC race and an enduro August 22-24. The weekend of racing showcases what the ...

Cedric takes you through his expanding signature tire lineup, explaining his creative process and all the work that goes into his signature brand of tires and the other new Panaracer tires he’s using in 2014.

Photos by the author and Dane Cronin, courtesy of GT Bicycles. There are dozens of cross country bikes on the market, and many of the were developed with racing in mind, then adapted back or watered down for the average trail rider. GT took the opposite approach with the new 110mm Helion. Starting with a more ...

Photos by the author and Dane Cronin, courtesy of GT Bicycles. Let’s face it, the vast majority of us are never going to need the kind of elite-level performance that modern race bikes are designed for. We want other things, like bigger tires, maybe some fender mounts, and a slightly more comfortable ride for our real-world ...

Summer is in full swing and that means it’s only a matter of time until we get to head north to the biggest of all mountain bike festivals in Whistler, B.C. Aside from the competitive riding there is some competitive creativity going on as well, with riders and photographers shooting to be the best in the ...

I’ve been a drop-bar, off-roading rider for a couple decades, so the whole ‘gravel’ category is a little late-coming and a bit cliché for me. Who wouldn’t want to ride a properly-specced and comfortable performance bike anywhere and everywhere? Isn’t that the point of adventure seeking? What’s new for me and others is the marriage ...

Trek hasn’t shied away from developing proprietary suspension products in its search for better performance. About five years ago, the Dual Rate Control Valve (DRVC) air spring system appeared on Trek’s full suspension bikes, and has remained part of its suspension designs ever since. About the same time, Trek started talks with Penske Racing Shocks through a fortunate ...

Technically it’s the JYD, but the name is a nod to the brand’s fondness for pro wresting. The JYD is a new monstercross/cruiser/mountainous/urban assault vehicle that is designed to be low-tech and big fun. Like most of All City’s bikes, it’s made from steel with some nice touches that set it apart, including the track-end ...

Our previous “Blast” dipped into Dirt Rag’s black/white reader art archives and featured a selection of monochrome masterpieces. This edition is a horse of a different color. We’ve put together a slide show of reader art that’s subtitled: In Living Color. Thanks again to all of the talented readers who’ve sent us their artwork over ...

One of our favorite rides every year is the Mt. Tam Dirt Fondo that samples some of the sweet singletrack where mountain biking was born on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, California. The original, 46-mile ride will still take place September 7, but this year the Marin County Bicycle Coalition has added a Summer Solstice ...

Courtesy of Red Bull Media House “Rad Company” chronicles mountain bike icon Brandon Semenuk as he and his handpicked team of riders push the limits of freeride mountain biking and showcase their skills on never-before-seen terrain. The movie features an eclectic soundtrack that flows like your favorite mix tape, while seamlessly meshing all disciplines of ...

We’ve been riding a lot of the new WTB tires lately and have been really impressed with both the new tread designs and the ease of use of the new TCS tubeless system. Today we look at the Bee Line, 27.5 XC tire and the Vigilante, a full-bore enduro and all-mountian tread.

As fat bikes get more and more popular, riders are looking for ever more performance from big wheels and tires. Fatback is one of the original fat bike brands, hailing from the Fat Bike Capital of the World: Anchorage, Alaska. Its latest project is the full-carbon Corvus frame and fork, which has been built into ...

Fat bikes and internally-geared hubs go together like peanut butter and chocolate, but as of now, options are limited. Currently the only option is to build an offset (or even non-offset) wheel with a standard 135mm hub and use a corresponding frame like Surly’s Pugsley. But as tires get every wider and hub spacing follows ...

Photographer Bryan Kirkwood sent us this great video he made with his dog Ty in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.  Have a photo (or video!) you’d like to share with readers? Send it to [email protected].

The NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race presented by Dirt Rag Magazine held near State College, Pennsylvania, from May 24 to May 31, 2014, proved a huge success among racers from near and far. After seven days of world-class racing through central Pennsylvania’s lush, green forests on dirt roads and pristine singletrack, NoTubes Trans-Sylvania ...

My favorite World Cup venue is once again filling up with fans and racers as the third round is underway this weekend in Ft. William, Scotland. Can Gee Atherton repeat his win from 2013? Can Peaty grab a win on home soil? Will there be any 26-inch bikes still around? So far we know Lapierre, ...

“It’s been a busy few weeks since South Africa!” Peaty wasn’t lying when he said it’d been a hectic couple of weeks since the first UCI World Cup round. Starting with the annual pilgrimage to the Scottish Six Day Trial with James Dabill, then onto the Swiss Alps with Claudio Calouri to scout a new ...

Kore’s Mega handlebar occupies a unique place in the market right now; at 251g it’s one of the lightest aluminum bars in 740-760mm width range, and is lighter than many carbon bars in the category despite being far cheaper. This 31.8mm bar is available in 20 and 30mm rise options, both with 5 degrees of ...

Giant Bicycles made a bold move this year by committing most of its line-up to 27.5 wheels. From hardtails to full-suspension, across the board you’ll see the middle wheel size. Though Giant didn’t totally eliminate 29ers this year (you can still find one or two versions each of Anthem, XTC and Trance, compared to a ...

SQlab is a German brand focused mainly on fit points: grips and saddles. The 711 grip looks like the Incredible Hulk wrapped his mighty paw around a round grip and gave it a squeeze. It’s perfectly shaped to fit your hand as you hold it and comes in three sizes to fit nearly any hand. The shape ...

A few months back we brought you details of the Megatrail, the second bike from the upstart Guerrilla Gravity based out of Colorado. The American-made frame is adjustable from “trail mode” to “gravity mode” with a swap of the shock mount, and the geometry drops and slackens out for near-downhill bike levels of performance. Framesets start ...

The folks out at Northstar Bike Park in California are itching to get another season of riders out on the trails. Weather permitting, they will open for business Friday, June 6.

To the casual spectator, it may seem that World Cup level XC racing is more about lung capacity than technical innovation. After all, aside from being light weight, the bikes don’t need to do anything complex, right? Not exactly. And that’s where the new Cannondale F-Si comes in. Yes, it’s one of the lightest, stiffest ...

Juliana pro rider, Anka Martin, has already proven the worthiness of the new 150mm travel Roubion with a victory at Trans-Provence, perhaps the world’s most challenging enduro race, a six-day stage race in France. The Roubion is named aster Anka’s favorite Trans-Provence stage.

Photos and text courtesy of the Trans-Sylvania Epic Media Team For some, the 26-mile final stage of the NoTubes’ Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race presented by Dirt Rag was a party day. But for race leaders and overall podium contenders, today was for the final hours of serious racing before riders crossed the finish ...

Photos and text courtesy of the Trans-Sylvania Epic Media Team There’s only one stage to go after today’s action in the NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race presented by Dirt Rag Magazine, so racing was fast and furious today as riders fought for 41 miles of the Queen Stage, which included plenty of climbing ...

The good old Fox 36 was getting a bit outdated, and with new wheelsizes taking hold, it was high time for a new fork. We recently brought you the news that it has been completely redeveloped for 2015, and now we have one in the office for testing and we’ve got more details to share.

Electronics are all around us. When was the last time you rolled up a window in a car? Turned a dial to tune in a radio station? Wound up an alarm clock? Been awhile, right? Well, we’ve been pulling cables to change gears on mountain bikes for decades. Our road and cyclocross brethren have been ...

Some say a great day is just a state of mind. For Smith Optics, great days are what reinvigorate personal passion for life outside walls. To celebrate Smith’s 50th anniversary of outdoor adventure in 2015, the brand is hosting a year-long web series, “Great Days”. Viewers get a behind the scenes look into what makes a ...

Photos and text courtesy of the Trans-Sylvania Epic Media Team With 31 miles of racing in R. B. Winter State Park, about 45 minutes from camp and deep into Pennsylvania Amish Country, NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage racers not only got to experience some new, perfectly tacky singletrack on Thursday, but they also got ...

Courtesy of Red Bull Following on from 2013’s mind-blowing ‘MacAskill’s Imaginate’, Epecuén is the latest film from Danny MacAskill. Directed by long time collaborator Dave Sowerby, will see Danny take his riding back to the roots of trials riding, exploring the forgotten town of Epecuén in Argentina, a location that has been submerged for the ...

Photos and text courtesy of the Trans-Sylvania Epic Media Team Wednesday’s stage 4 is often referred to as the “road stage” of the NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race presented by Dirt Rag Magazine. However, massive thunderstorms rolling in the previous night and rain all morning made for a messy start. As one racer explained ...

Enduro racing has exploded in popularity in recent years, and the NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race presented by Dirt Rag Magazine takes that popularity seriously, with their week-long SRAM Enduro stages during each day’s racing and a full day devoted to the SRAM/Geax Enduro on stage 3 on Tuesday. The 22-mile long stage ...

Recently we brought you details of the new Mavic Crossmax XL wheel and tire system, and now you can see it in action. Click here to read more about what makes the Crossmax XL wheel and tire system unique, as well as details of other new Mavic products.

Text and photographs courtesy of the TSE Media Team The second stage of the NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic presented by Dirt Rag Magazine was arguably the hardest stage of the week – and obviously the hardest stage thus far – with 41 miles of racing, 25 of which was rocky, technical singletrack. With four SRAM Enduro ...

This Memorial Day Weekend (for us) was round three of the UCI World Cup cross-country series in Novo Mesto na Morave in the Czech Republic. By the looks of the course in this pre-ride video perhaps the U.S. series could learn a thing or two about making a real mountain bike track. It’s ironic to ...

Text and photographs courtesy of the TSE Media Team Racing started with a bang for some and a whimper for others in the first stage of the week-long NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike race presented by Dirt Rag Magazine in the wilds of western Pennsylvania. Sunny skies and mild warm temperatures showcased the best of ...

Once again we had a great time at Dirt Rag Dirt Fest presented by Niner Bikes at the Allegrippis Trails at Raystown Lake, Pennsylvania. We had a blast and we sure hope you did, too. We’d like to extend a HUGE thank you to our title sponsor Niner Bikes, all our exhibitors, the volunteers to put ...

The NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race presented by Dirt Rag Magazine has partnered with event tracking provider Trackleaders.com and device maker SPOT LLC to become the first stage race in North America to equip top racers with tracking devices. The 2014 edition of the race will May 25-31. The NoTubes Trans-Sylvania Epic (TSEpic) ...

Some say a great day is just a state of mind. For Smith Optics, great days are what reinvigorate personal passion for life outside walls. To celebrate Smith’s 50th anniversary of outdoor adventure in 2015, the brand is hosting a year-long web series, “Great Days”. Viewers get a behind the scenes look into what makes a ...

LOOK knows a thing or three about clipless pedals: the French brand was the first to make a widely adopted clipless road pedal in the mid-1980s. For 2013, it has redesigned its mountain bike offering with versatility and durability in mind.

By John Herron I’ve ridden my share of XC wünderbikes over the last 20 years, but I wasn’t familiar with Van Nicholas, or its line of titanium bikes. Without much of an American dealer presence, the Dutch company relies on its website for selling to most of the United States, which left me to ponder: ...

We got our first ride on Magura’s new four-piston brakes in Sedona, Arizona. The design is based on motorcycle technology, with four independent pistons and brake pads. Read more about them here.

If you have a serious bike obsession equal to mine, shopping for new bike products can break the bank. Thankfully, Nashbar is a competitively-priced company that carries a plethora of products, including bikes, like this offering, the $500 Bee’s Knees 650B Single Speed. The Bee’s Knees is a simple, fully rigid singlespeed with working man’s ...

How do you start your day? Kyle Jameson starts his with a little spin on his Scott Genius.